Another Box Blade Question

[MarkV]

I know many of you feel you have talked box blades to death but some of us are slow to learn. I am about to buy a 5' box blade for my B21 to use on gravel roads most of the time. After rereading the archives and looking at the condition of the roads I need to work I am concerned about getting a even surface. The words rutted, hard packed, hilly and pot holed come to mind.

Does anyone have thoughts if a hinged box blade would help or are they mostly for getting a smooth finish on dirt? I am also unclear as to the disadvantage of a hinged unit. There is always a disadvantage.

How about gauge wheel(s) on a box blade? Is that ever done? I know MarkC has that on a blade with end plates but Mark has all the good stuff. LOL.

While I am on a roll, are all postion controls hard to get small increments of ajustment with or just mine? With my rear blade I often would like to raise the blade slightly and end up making bigger jumps than needed no matter how much I try to feather it.

At last I am done except to say thanks for all the information I have gotten from reading everyones posts in the last year.

MarkV

 

[MChalkley]

MarkV, I don't know much about hinged box scrapers - I've only used one once, and I wasn't very impressed with it. They do help in getting a smooth surface on dirt, but that's about it.

I still recommend the blade with guage wheel as the easiest way to accomplish what you want. If you've got a hydraulic top link cylinder, you can set a manual guage wheel close to where you want it, then vary your depth by rocking the blade back against the guage wheel with the toplink. It works quite well, if you don't have all the good stuff. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

In my experience, the position controls are very difficult to make fine adjustments with. That's one of the excellent reasons for hydraulic guage wheels. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Mark(C)

 

[W5FL]

Guess you just need to learn the right techniques to use a box blade correctly. I sure never have. The only use I have ever got out of my box blade before I sold it was to drag dirt out of a pile and to move it around trying to smooth out a place for grass. After looking at the uneveness in the grass, I wondered why I bothered. The scarfiers really worked well and they were the saving grace for the box blade for me. The driveway had so many hills and dales in it, I finally got the landscape rake to smooth it out and it worked ten times better than the box blade. I sold it when I sold my last tractor.

I have never got a box blade to do much of anything on a hard road base surface. Right after a rain, you can smooth the surface with a box blade, but going in reverse seems to be the only way to get a fair surface.

I found a Road Grader tool that is written about in one of the messages under the name Grade Master. It seems to do a much better job on a drive than a box blade. Unfortunately it costs a little more.

 

[dfranksmith]

For me grading a gravel driveway with a box blade would be somewhere between extremely frustrating and hopeless. A rake with gauge wheels works great for me. I don't have guage wheels for my box blade, maybe that would be a different story.

I bought a box blade for spreading a heap of topsoil, among other things. The folks on this board tell me it's possible to spread dirt with the box blade, but hard. I had no luck at all and ended up using the loader and rake.

The problem you face in trying to make a level cut with the box is that the cutting edge inevitably bites into the earth, forcing you readjust it or back up. As you mentioned, it's hard to position the implement precisely. I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to remove the cutting edge sometimes.

On the other hand the box scraper is unsurpassed for coarse grading, and the scarifiers are good for busting up the soil before you till or seed.

In summary, my experience is that a box without wheels is poor for grading. On the other hand grading with a rake with gauge wheels couldn't be much easier.

 

[tom roe]

hello i thought i would throw my 2 cents in , what i have found on the box scrapers is the flap on the back on boxes like gannon can be bolted solid so you can tilt the box back on the flap which raises the cutting edge up so it will grade out without digging, i put a hydraulic cylinder for my center link and i can set in the seat and tilt it back when i want to grade out and tilt it forward to cut the surface down also a draft control i feel is reel important on your tractor to do a professional job.
good luck tom r.

 

[MarkV]

OK guys, thanks for the imput. It looks like the bottom line is, there isn't an easy solution. Several comments about rakes make me wonder if that is not the way to go. Am I right in thinking that the rake will spread loose gravel evenly but ruts and pot holes need to be cut down with a blade or box first? I have never used a rake but can't see it doing much to break up hard surface.

MarkV